For those of you unfamiliar with the Osbourne family and their surprise hit entry into the already crowded “reality TV” market, check out my first season review of the show already posted here at DVDMG. (I don’t really feel like reintroducing the series for obvious reasons.) However, for those of you intimately familiar with the Osbournes and their brand of family values, be prepared for more of the same, as the show’s sophomore effort began to wear out its welcome. The family and their antics really started to become slightly more grating and predictable the second time around.

While the first season of the show was uniquely groundbreaking and unusually funny (I mean, who knew that Ozzy was so unintentionally hilarious?!?), the second season was a little too familiar and overplayed, as Sharon and the kids especially seemed a little too self-aware of the fame the first season had brought them. The novelty that permeated the first season definitely faded in the second and by the time it was over, you were as ready for the Osbournes to leave as you might be a guest that has outstayed his/her welcome in your home.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of moments during the second season that are genuinely funny (Ozzy building a beach fire), touching (the renewal of the couple’s wedding vows in the season finale), and personal (the frank portrayal of Sharon’s cancer) … and the family is amazingly normal considering their outlandish wealth and fame … but after a while, the day to day goings on in the Osbournes household simply wore thin.

Episodes during the sophomore season of the show were as follows:

- Disc One -

What Goes Up … (Original Air Date: November 26, 2002)
Jack gets fed up with all the star watchers that have been showing up at their home since the first season of the show became so popular and goes to “extreme” measures to keep them away from his family’s home. Ozzy and Sharon are guests of President Bush at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner in Washington, DC and Kelly’s “career” begins as she sings “Papa Don’t Preach” at the MTV Movie Awards. While there, we see a star struck Jack as he drools over Natalie Portman. Sharon makes a gloomy prediction that comes true in ways she never expected. (In this episode, we get to see what happens when people that are rich and famous in their own right get star-struck over other famous people that they’ve personally never met ... Kinda funny.)

… Must Come Down (Original Air Date: December 3, 2003)
Sharon recuperates while undergoing treatment for her colon cancer and in true Osbourne fashion, assures everyone that she will kick its ass. The family is having a hard time dealing with the diagnosis – especially Ozzy – and the bad news threatens to erase Ozzy’s strides he has made while going through detox. Everyone offers Ozzy advice on how to deal with the tragedy, but he wants no part of it. Sharon tries to set a romantic mood for she and Ozzy while he’s home for a few days on break from his tour and the fire she tries to set in the fireplace ends up going really, really, wrong. (This was really a “humanizing” episode for the family, as you see through all of the TV BS and see the true love that the family members have for each other. Surprisingly, you feel worse for Ozzy than you do for Sharon, as he really seems helpless without her.)

The Ozz Man And The Sea (Original Air Date: December 10, 2002)
Kelly, proving that the Europeans have an odd taste for all things American (David Hasselhoff anyone?), travels to Europe on a publicity tour for her new album. Her bag is lost in transit and she frets over not having any clean underwear. (Forget the fact the she’s the daughter of multi-millionaire parents and she can easily buy out any Victoria’s Secret in Europe.) Jack heads out to North Carolina in order to guest star on Dawson’s Creek. Sharon becomes depressed that both of the kids are out of the house and Ozzy tries to cheer her up by building a romantic fire on the beach that ends up with hilarious results.

Beauty And The Bert (Original Air Date: December 17, 2002)
Kelly is dating Bert McCracken, lead singer of The Used, and Sharon isn’t really impressed with her daughter’s choice in suitors … Jack thinks the guy is kinda weird too. Kelly, in typical spoiled brat fashion, claims that she’ll simply run off to Vegas and marry the guy anyway. Sharon encourages Kelly to invite Bert to spend a few days with the family and when she finally brings him over, Sharon puts Bert on the spot and completely embarrasses Kelly by her line of questioning. Ozzy – still having problems with the remote – ends up getting the TV stuck on a cooking channel and develops a fascination with the show, Two Fat Ladies.

Smells Like Teen Spirits (Original Air Date: January 7, 2003)
Many Moore stops by as Sharon attempts to reconcile with her father, while both Kelly and Jack’s wild nights of drinking and partying begin to wear on Sharon and Ozzy. Their parents attempt to warm them of what could happen to them of they’re caught drinking underage, but as expected, it has no effect on the duo. Kelly gets a massive hangover and Sharon tortures her throughout the day. Ozzy’s eldest daughter, Jessica, has a baby and makes Oz a proud grandfather.

Meow Means Not (Original Air Date: January 14, 2003)
Kelly hires a good friend of hers in order to play drums for her band with disastrous results. Kelly doesn’t have the heart to fire her, so Sharon agrees to do the deed for her. However, they offer Kelly’s friend another position in the band doing promotional stuff and coordinating a video shoot. Jack’s friend Jason Dill shows back up to freeload off of the Osbourne family and while Ozzy doesn’t approve, he doesn’t do anything to keep Dill from staying. Also, the family feels that a rape has occurred in the house – Arthur, a family dog, has taken advantage of Gus, one of the family cats.

It’s A Hard Knock Life (Original Air Date: January 21, 2003)
Poor Kelly … the “rock star” life is just wearing her down, as all of the appearances and promotional stops are taking their toll. Sharon tries to comfort her stressed out daughter and Ozzy tries to explain to her how the music business works as well. After more embarrassingly juvenile tantrums, Kelly’s off to New York again in order to do another photo shoot and work on her album some more … and it’s there that she meets P. Diddy, who invites Kelly to one of his parties. Kelly gets accidentally knocked down by one of Diddy’s bodyguards and he repays her for the accident by giving her a very expensive watch as an apology. Sharon embarrasses Kelly by continually talking about becoming P. Diddy’s mother-in-law. Ozzy hears some demos from Kelly’s album and is obviously a very proud poppa, while Jack is having a hard time getting any demos from a band he’s trying to sign. (Unfortunately, this is another one of those episodes where you just want to slap Kelly for being such a bitch … just when you feel that the family can come across half-way normal, Kelly or Jack do something so juvenile that you just want to puke. These kids need a huge dose of reality …)

Cleanliness Is Next To Ozzyness (Original Air Date: January 28, 2003)
Ozzy’s tired of the dogs and all the crap that comes along with ‘em … pun intended … and with Sharon’s diminished immune system because of her chemo treatments, Ozzy really impresses on everyone how important it is to keep the crap away from his wife and requires that everyone coming in contact with her wear surgical gloves. Ozzy meets with a contractor in order to build an outdoor kennel for the dogs and when Sharon pitches a fit about it, the idea is nixed. Sharon, tired of being cooped up in the house, takes their new “son” Robert (whose mother, a good friend of the family, recently died of colon cancer) shopping for furniture and Jack makes sure that Robert feels welcome as a new member of the family. Sharon gets great news from her doctor – her cancer is in remission.

- Disc Two -

Viva Ozz Vegas (Original Air Date: February 4, 2003)
It’s Kelly’s 18th birthday and she bitches and moans about not wanting a birthday party. However, Ozzy has a show in Vegas, so Sharon decides to pile up the family and go with him. However, when Jack invites a few friends, it causes some problems with Kelly. Jack and his buddies have a hard time dodging their security detail in order to get drunk, while Kelly and Sarah have no problems with that at all … and get quite hammered. Kelly pitches one of her diva fits when she feels that Jack is getting too much attention on her birthday. (Sigh … This is the episode that solidified my hatred for Kelly as she acts like a 12-year-old trapped in an 18-year-old’s body. I don’t fault her for her life if luxury, I fault her for acting like a spoiled brat with it and continually making mountains out of molehills. The smallest, most insignificant thing sets her off and it’s obvious, other than her mother’s health scare, she knows nothing about day-to-day issues most “normal” people face.)

My Big Fat Jewish Wedding (Original Air Date: February 11, 2003)
Ozzy and Sharon decide to renew their wedding vows and for some left-field reason, Kelly objects to a Jewish rabbi presiding over the ceremony. Sharon catches Jack with a girl in his hotel room and finds condoms as well … she encourages Jack to slow down and settle down, but in typical male teenage fashion, Jack blows off his mother’s advice. (Jack suffers from the “Mick Jagger Syndrome” … he only gets laid and/or female attention because he’s rich and famous.) Tons of celebrities show up at the ceremony, as Ozzy is visibly moved when Sharon reads aloud the vows she’s written for the ceremony. However, the couple’s second wedding night ends just as their first did … with Ozzy drunk and passed out! (A touching way to end the season and an enjoyable episode as well.)

While not as original and groundbreaking as the first season, The Osbournes: The Second Season was still interesting enough to keep you coming back week in and week out to follow the escapades of the Osbourne family. However, the second season really started wearing out its welcome, as I had began to grow tired of Jack and Kelly’s whiny escapades and Sharon’s domineering stranglehold over the entire thing. It was good for a while … and season two definitely had its moments … but the show started showing signs of losing its legs by season’s end and the show’s plummeting ratings proved that out.

Miramax brings home the second season of The Osbournes just as they did the first – in a fullframe presentation that preserves its televised aspect ratio of 1.33. The show looks as good as it did during its run on MTV and Miramax has maintained a high-level of quality for the season’s debut on DVD. It’s a fine presentation and it fits the material at hand like a glove.

Sharpness and detail are above-average, albeit inconsistent at times, throughout all ten episodes of the second season. There are moments where the image is brilliant and bold, followed by moments of slight softness. It’s nothing distracting by any means and is to be expected for a show such as this; especially one in this particular genre. The color palette was natural and warm, without any smearing or bleeding noted, and everything maintained proper balance and contrast throughout. Black levels were appropriately deep and dark and were on par with other shows of this type, while fleshtones remained natural throughout.

Flaws were minor, but present, as I saw some minor compression artifacting, as well as a few instances of shimmer and grain. Edge enhancement was held at bay and when it was all said and done, The Osbournes: The Second Season looked quite nice. Miramax has put out a really nice transfer and fans of the series will have little to find fault with when giving it a spin through their DVD players.

As with the first season of the show, Miramax brings The Osbournes: The Second Season home in the same Dolby Digital 2.0 mix we heard before and it suits the material just fine. If music played a bigger part in the series, maybe a 5.1 mix would be warranted, but as it is, The Osbournes is nothing more than a documentary of the day-to-day life of a normal family … not really 5.1 material, or even worth Miramax’s effort to make it so.

Dialogue, the main element in the track, comes through crystal clear and intelligible (save for some of Ozzy’s outbursts) at all times. It’s firmly anchored in the center channel and rarely strays. Effects, occurring naturally throughout the household and other locales, come across natural in Miramax’s transfer and sounded very crisp and clean at all times. Directional cues and splits are non-existent, as are any sort of ambient moments, and The Osbournes: The Second Season rarely rises above its televised origins. Even so, fans of the show, and even those only remotely familiar with it, will find no fault with Miramax’s efforts here.

Miramax has also included English and French subtitles in order to supplement the Surround mix.

As with the previous set, we have the option of watching the episodes Censored or Uncensored … and at times, it’s just as funny to hear the bleeps! as it is to hear the vulgarity itself. This selection must be made for each individual episode and either way you slice it, the experience pretty much remains the same.

Each of the ten episodes in season two contain their own Audio Commentary with the Osbourne family and while entertaining in spots, you have to sit through a lot of worthless crap and extended periods of dead air in order to hear it. Worthwhile for hardcore fans of the series only and a questionable way to revisit the entire ten episodes of the show if you’re only casually interested. Good in spots, but far from great.

The Ozzy Translator also makes it back for every episode and this is nothing more than a text-based representation of what Ozzy is saying that pops up on the screen when he’s saying it. Helpful in spots, but the font Miramax used is so horrendous, I’d rather listen to Oz.

There’s more Bonus Footage included this time around as well and it’s broken up into multiple chapters – “Sharon’s Visit With The Botox Fairy”, “No Playboy Party At The House”, “Spritzing At The Crew”, “Jack And Kelly Wrestle”, “Pee Stories”, “Lola Farts”, “Naming The Animals”, “No Sex”, “Ozzy Swimming”, “Jack Osbourne Found Them”, “Killing Animals”, “Ozz On Dogs”, “Lola Freaks”, “The Osbourne”, “Jack’s Shark Story”, “Ozzy Gets Physical”, “Kelly And Jack Argue”, “I Love Poo”, “The Emmys”, “Bullock Repellent”, and “Lola’s Passion”. Thankfully, Miramax has included a –PLAY ALL- button for the feature and when chosen, the scenes as a whole run for just under 33-minutes. There are some good moments here and they should definitely be required viewing for those who consider themselves fans of the series.

Under Games, we find a couple of interactive selections entitled Dookie’s Revenge and What The *@&%$ Did He Say? Both are amusing at best and rarely offered much fun for the viewer. In Dookie, we can choose to play as one of the three Osbourne dogs and via a “dog’s eye view”, we click the appropriate paw prints in order to guide ourself to the appropriate place to take a dump. Not even fun the first time around …

In What, we watch a clip from the show and are then presented with three choices as to what Ozzy really said. Again, not even fun the first time through and if you skipped this entire section, you wouldn’t be missing a whole lot.

Some DVD-ROM content resides on the discs in the form of Crazy Training … an impressively synchronized mini-game for each episode that allows you to follow the action of each episode while playing along on your DVD-ROM player. While remotely interesting, it loses its shine real fast and becomes rather laborious.

The Osbournes: The Second Season is definitely one of those sets reserved for fans of the show only. While the asking price is surprisingly low, I would suggest a weekend rental first to make sure you could stomach the entire ten episodes before you dropped the bones on it. As I said in my review for the first season of the series, your love of the Osbourne family itself is going to have a lot to do with how well the show is received in your DVD player.